


Timestamps: Cold Space, Warm Welcome

by Annie D (scaramouche)



Series: Cold Space, Warm Welcome [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, M/M, Steve POV, Timestamp, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-01-26 01:02:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21365587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scaramouche/pseuds/Annie%20D
Summary: Timestamps forCold Space, Warm Welcome.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Cold Space, Warm Welcome [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2085207
Comments: 50
Kudos: 633





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An early scene of Cold Space, Warm Welcome, from Steve's POV.

Everyone’s making a fuss over nothing. Steve’s had more than his fair share of falling into vacuum, and really, it was only a matter of time before he’d do it with a malfunctioning suit. It’s only been a few minutes since he’d arrived on board the Iron Advance but he’s already regained coordination and feeling in his hands and feet. 

“You drink that up,” Natasha says, nodding at the cup in his hands, courtesy of Happy and the Iron Advance hangar’s drinks dispensary. Why didn’t they have one on the Furtherance? Oh well.

Steve squints at the steaming mug in his hands. “Don’t you have a black box to decode?”

“It’s on my list,” Natasha says. “After making sure the Captain hasn’t frozen to death.”

“C’mon, it’d take more than a space jaunt to freeze our Cap,” Clint says.

“Oh, so this is typical of y’all,” Rhodey says. “Is that what I’m hearing?”

While the others erupt into what is no doubt a fruitful discussion on what is and isn’t the norm of the two crews, Steve focuses on the drink. Truth be told, he thinks it’s not mainly the drink, nor the blanket on his shoulders, that’s making him feel better and raring to go.

It’s the excitement of where they are, all of them, on the Iron Advance. Although losing a good ship will sting for a long time, Steve has always kept his focus forward and onward and upward, through his military career and Sol service and wars that lost their purpose long before their momentum.

Better to be in the here and now, on a ship that belongs to trust allies, and especially…

Actually, there he is.

Steve thinks he might’ve developed a hypersensitivity to the color combo of red-and-gold. Just seeing it at the corner of his eye makes him perk up, as it does now, thanks to Tony’s marching across the hangar, his armor’s boots surprisingly light on the metal walkway. Steve wondered earlier where he’d gone off to, when everyone else had landed. Even now, Tony isn’t approaching them, but is instead walking towards a metal rig by the bulkhead.

Steve feels himself ready to get up and call out – _Tony, where are you going?_

But then Tony turns, stepping backward into the rig, and the armor opens.

The armor _opens __– _Steve had no idea it could open like that, and he thought it was a far more difficult process what with how he’s never Tony so much as take off his helmet – whereby plates and flaps do a complicated but seemingly effortless dance around its human pilot, who then steps out.

Its human pilot, who is Tony, who steps down onto the grate.

He is – that is – that’s Tony.

Steve can’t say he’s never wondered what Tony looks like inside the suit. He’s wondered _a lot_, but he’s also figured that it didn’t matter, because Tony could look like anyone and he’d still be wonderful – funny, smart, sarcastic, and such a good guy when he’s not feeling self-conscious about it.

But Steve now realizes that he _had_ developed some mental images of Tony that persisted. Namely, the strong association of Tony with the red-and-gold armor meant that Steve’s been thinking of the man underneath as having the traits of that armor, too – shiny, glossy, perfectly crafted like the amazing creations he makes.

But Tony’s not perfectly-crafted and glossy. He’s just… a guy. He’s a human being with messy hair, unkempt overalls and workshop stains on his arms and hands. A human being with clever brown eyes, a goatee over a chin that hints at a smirk, strong arms and tapered waist, plus all of above in a single package that is breathtakingly touchable and relatable and vulnerable in ways that the armor isn’t.

One thing remains true between the armor and the man underneath: they’re both beautiful.

The man rather more, though.

The man’s also scowling at him. And is turning away, muttering an instruction to the Iron Advance’s computer under his breath.

Steve should say something. He _must_ say something. But all his brain can summon up is a variation of, _Oh wow_, which is neither useful nor witty, and Steve wants to be witty.

“I got your shield,” Tony calls out at him. “You’re welcome.”

“Oh, that’s—” Steve starts to get up, but pressure on his shoulder keeps him sitting. This is a sorry state of affairs, because Tony leaves without even a glance back, as though Steve’s the only one who feels the weight of this historical moment, because it _is_ a historical moment.

“That’s…” Steve realizing that he’s still staring down the doorway Tony disappeared through. “That’s _Tony_.”

“Yeah,” Rhodey says slowly. “I’m pretty sure you’ve met.”

Steve blinks rapidly, as though a fog is just rising out of his brain. He quickly busies himself consuming the drink in his hands, and ignores the sound Natasha makes behind his back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Originally posted on tumblr](https://no-gorms.tumblr.com/post/188247378041/hi-i-just-wanted-to-let-you-know-that-youre-an).


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A coda set after the events of the fic, with Tony and Steve having settled down on living together on the Iron Advance.

Normally at this time of day Tony would have a few more hours left in him before he’d call it a night. But it’s a been long 24 hours, and there are limits to how long Tony can fire on all cylinders while in troubleshooting mode. By the time Rhodey closes the post-mortem, Tony thinks that he’d get a migraine if he had to look at another circuit board or codesheet.

“Anyone want to go up for drinks?” Bruce says. “Just to…”

“Yes, please,” Pepper says.

“I’m game,” Sam agrees.

Tony doesn’t even need to beg off. Once glance at his face and the crew’s post-battle conversation releases him without comment, allowing him the painless exit that he so badly wants. He stands up, rubbing a knuckle against one eye, as the others start a friendly argument about what ‘drinks’ specifically means, and if coffee counts or is at all sensible when everyone’s already crashing.

Before Tony leaves the room, he glances back one more time. Steve meets his eye, the way he always does, and Tony mouths a silent, “’Night.” Steve reciprocates with a nod and a small smile.

Leave taken, Tony lets his legs carry him all the way to his room.

His eyes are open, but they might as well not be for how he zones out the whole journey; he only snaps back to awareness when he realizes that someone (_Bucky_) left his blanket on the floor in their rush to answer the morning’s alarm.

Tony considers leaving the blanket where it is, then sighs and drapes it back over the bed.

There are many different kinds of exhaustion, though one of the most annoying is when the body and mind are out of sync. Tony’s body is ready to crash, but his mind still in fight mode, not yet convinced that the ship is out of peril, because what if! What if they’d pushed the ship’s reactor to the limit, or hadn’t shaken the hostiles off their tail as they thought, and so on and so on?

But the Iron Advance is quiet. In need of repairs, but quiet.

Tony sits on his bed for a few minutes, and tries to distract his brain with an equally annoying evergreen tune that’s randomly popped up in his head.

There’s a knock at the door.

Tony glances at his communicator automatically, but he hasn’t missed any messages. He’s too wired to be confused, so he gets up to answer the door without a single grumbled curse.

Which is probably a good thing, because it’s Steve on the other side of the door.

Steve, who’s standing at angle from the doorway, like a page half-turned. The good former-Captain is broad enough to fill just about any doorway on the Iron Advance like a battering ram with those damned shoulders of his, but right now he’s barely filling half of this particular doorway, and there’s a beat before he meets Tony’s eye.

It takes Tony a second, but that’s okay. Tony’s almost always a half-second slow in understanding Steve, because of the unusual space he fills in Tony’s mind and world.

“Yeah.” Tony backs up, allowing Steve to enter. “It’s pretty much the mess you’d expect.”

“So’s mine, if it makes you feel any better.” Steve’s eye immediately goes to the maintenance arm, still half-unfolded from its bay, before trailing to Tony’s crates in the corner, all of them mismatched and colorful and covered with stickers from their travels. He doesn’t ignore Bucky’s side of the room, but it’s obvious where his interest is.

There’s a chair that Tony can offer, but he won’t.

Fact is, Steve’s never been in Tony’s room before.

Dating while living on the same ship was always going to be strange and boundary-slipping, but they’ve managed so far. ‘Dates’ are formally-demarcated pockets of time, occasionally spent off the ship but most of the time on it. When on the ship, they space walk, or reserve an area of the ship just to themselves. It’s a work in progress, and they’ve never visited the others’ room beyond seeing the other off at the end of each date. (Actual making out is done elsewhere; the observation deck in particular has been excellent for it.)

Tony’s even avoided doing maintenance in the spare room – now Steve’s room, effectively, until they finish renovations – by handing it off to one of the others. Not because he’s _afraid_, but because he knows himself and he’d get distracted studying every single thing in there that he won’t get the job done.

“You said your arm is fine,” Tony says.

“It is. It _is_,” Steve insists, when Tony gives him a look. He turns back to the rest of the room curiously. “I thought you kept spare suit in here.”

“Under the bed. Folded up, though.”

Steve _actually_ looks under the bed, though when Tony laughs, he straightens back up with an affronted scowl. “You weren’t serious?”

“No, I’m serious, it is there. But.” Tony steps towards Steve, claiming that pocket of warmth that would be the circle of Steve’s arms if he were to lift them. He looks up into Steve’s ridiculous eyes, and is aware that his mouth is quivering from the effort to stop himself from smiling.

Steve is often direct, and alarmingly so. But other times he isn’t, and is for some reason only able to exude sincerity and hope in being understood.

“You’re not here to look at my suit.” Tony puts his hands on Steve’s waist. The muscle there jumps, as does Steve’s throat. “You’re here – I mean, you literally walked all the way down here, _on purpose_, because you want to have—”

“We don’t have to,” Steve says quickly.

“I know. You’d be happy with anything. And it’s been a long day.”

Steve relaxes. “Yes, that, exactly.”

“You still did it knowing it was a possibility, though.” Tony’s full-on grinning now. “What about Bucky? You got a thing about getting interrupted?”

“Uh.” Steve’s mouth drags sideways in a sheepish wince. “He’s in my room. I said that if I don’t come back in an hour, he should, uh… stay there.”

“Amazing.” Tony means that; he’s impressed. He knows that Steve is not above having base wants, but getting carried away while pawing at each other isn’t the same as making a clearheaded request, which is exactly what this is. “There’s being forward, and then there’s being—”

“Tony!” Steve laughs and dips his head forward, bringing his temple to brush against Tony’s. Tony’s hair is a little longer now, some strands of which fall over Steve’s eye, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Steve’s fingers trail feather-light lines down Tony’s forearms, before coming to rest at his elbows. They stand together like that for a while, breathing in, not yet kissing.

Steve swallows again, his Adam’s apple bobbing large and dramatic at the edge of Tony’s vision. Steve’s holding himself still but Tony gets the impression of nerves and anticipation, which in turn has excitement flickering up Tony’s spine.

Tony turns his head, guiding his lips across Steve’s cheek until he finds his mouth. Steve sighs and kisses back, while his fingers dig tight and eager around Tony’s elbows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Originally posted on tumblr](https://no-gorms.tumblr.com/post/640196526035124224/you-are-the-author-whose-works-i-re-read-most).


End file.
